Keeping Tabs
by Anidori-Kiladra
Summary: No matter how he tries to rationalize it, the fact remains that Draco can't help keeping tabs on Potter. Harry/Draco-ish.


Keeping Tabs

Draco couldn't help keeping tabs on Potter. It had started almost unconsciously. After the Battle at Hogwarts, the Daily Prophet had contained almost nothing _but_ Potter, though when had that actually been any different, really?

But as the months and then the years passed, Draco continued to scan headings, turn pages, and even peruse the back sections of the newspaper, following Potter's name.

He even bought an edition of the damn Quibbler, just because it boasted a caricatured Potter on the front cover, his head far too large and his scar stretching over practically his entire forehead. The article claimed something about how Potter's connections with subversive goblin groups were the real reason behind his defeat of Voldemort, so that has been a waste of ten galleons, anyway.

Draco tried to rationalize it at first, thinking that there was nothing _else_ to do, being practically confined to the Manor, by wish of not being hissed at in the street if not by law, or that he and Potter had always had a rivalry, a healthy rivalry which may sometimes have involved a bit of sneaking about and spying and knowing what the other was up to, so why should that stop now? But after a while, Draco gave up on reasoning and more or less just accepted it.

A year after he had last seen Potter, Draco read that Potter had passed his Auror exam with flying colors and was already causing a stir in the department by insisting on taking on all the most exciting, high profile cases by himself, sometimes even leaving his partner, a veteran Auror whose name Draco couldn't remember, behind when following a lead. He supposed some things never changed.

Two years after he had last seen Potter, he read that Potter and the Weaselette had gotten married at last, and not a year after that, read about the arrival of their first child. Potter certainly didn't waste any time.

By that time, Draco had started to emerge from the Manor more frequently, mostly to accompany his mother on her frequent visits to Mrs. Greengrass, an old acquaintance of hers. Draco knew that the real reason for their visits was that Mother hoped he would involve himself with one of the Greengrass girls. Draco wasn't necessarily against it, though Daphne was definitely out. He'd seen enough of her in their Hogwarts days to feign anything but vague interest now, and besides, he knew, even if his mother didn't, that she had lately been in Paris shacking up with Pansy Parkinson.

Astoria Greengrass, on the other hand, was an interesting girl. Two years younger than he was, she had a pert smile and a way of crossing her legs just so that showed off an expanse of delicately muscled white thigh that told Draco that she might be as amenable to their mothers' plans as he.

Four years after their lavish wedding, one which certainly didn't get the full center spread Potter's did, Draco was largely bored of Astoria, but he had expected that and, he suspected, so had she. So he expected her to ignore the frequent female visitors to his suite, just as he ignored the presence of Blaise Zabini in her bed and at their breakfast table.

"Why don't you just get divorced?" Pansy asked on one of her infrequent visits, lipstick smudging the edges of their best china, the set Astoria's grandmother had brought them from Vienna.

Draco shrugged. "There'd be no point. There's no one else I'm interested in being with for more than a week or two anyway."

Pansy eyed him shrewdly in that way she had, but Draco carefully moved his plate over the open Daily Prophet, Potter's face staring up from an article stating his favorable opinion of the newly-passed legislation on the fair wages and working treatment of house elves, and she had no more advice to offer him after that.

Astoria might have noticed the clippings he kept in his sock drawer, but if so, she never said anything. Some were from early on, like the court statement discussing the Malfoy family's exoneration, with a statement from Potter affirming his belief in their innocence. Draco still wasn't sure what to make of that. Others, later ones, were easier to interpret, but less easy to explain to himself why they were in his drawer in the first place: this one a small piece from How To and Style, showing a dissection of the Potter Style and how you too could achieve it in seven easy steps, that one a spread of several pages from the time a reporter had finagled his way into the Potter home and talked Ginny Potter into giving a tour.

Eight years after Draco had last seen Potter, he saw him again, in a little back alley bar in Muggle London, the last place he'd ever expected to see anybody. Draco liked to go there sometimes when he wanted a quiet drink away from home, to avoid the narrowed-eyed stares and vaguely-sinister whispers which followed him even now.

He had just ordered his traditional firewhiskey shot when he saw a familiar rumpled shirt and mop of brown hair. Potter sat in the back corner Draco usually favored, hands on the tabletop before him, staring at the grooves in the wood while a blue drink smoked beside him.

Draco hesitated only a moment before approaching him. After all, if he went to another table and let Potter take his spot, albeit unintentionally, what message would that send about their rivalry?

"Well, well, well. Fancy meeting you here," he said, and almost immediately regretted his choice of words. He sounded like a child. Hoping to salvage the situation, he went on, "The famous Potter, boy who lived, hero of us all, in a lowly Muggle bar. What is the world coming to?"

Potter had looked up at his first words, and was still staring incredulously at him when he finished. "Me?" he finally said, starting to stand and then thinking better of it, or perhaps stopped by the closeness of the table and the bench he was sitting on. "What are _you_ doing here, Malfoy?"

He sounded so nervous and angry and confused that Draco felt his own nervousness disappearing and began to feel rather amused by the whole situation. "I asked you first."

Potter sighed. "It's none of your business, Malfoy."

Draco smiled a bit. Potter really was remarkably as he remembered him. "Fine," he said, sliding onto the bench opposite Potter. "What would you like to discuss then, your hero-ness?"

Potter scowled. "Nothing, if it's all the same to you. I came here to be alone, you know."

"Aha!" Draco said. "You always were horrible at keeping secrets, Potter. So, that's it, then. Fame getting you down?"

"Don't talk about things you don't understand, Malfoy," Potter said. "You have no idea how it feels to have so many people depending on you, day in and day out, always wanting something from you. Make a statement about this, Mr. Potter. Who is your favorite member of the Weird Sisters, Harry? It's not all it's cracked up to be. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like," and here his voice became rather dreamy and he looked off over Draco's shoulder, "if this had all happened to someone else."

It was at this point that Draco began suspecting that Potter had already had rather more than a few drinks.

But still, he felt it was his civic duty to inform Potter of just how delusional he was. "Oh yeah, you think you've got it so bad, Potter? People looking to you for advice, having the power to change things, loved by all. You wouldn't last two days in my shoes."

Potter had been staring distractedly at the mist rising from his drink, which made shapes in the air as it rose, dragons and phoenixes, but at this he looked up. "Of course not. I'm sure they're very fancy and uncomfortable. I'd probably get blisters."

Draco was startled by his desire to chuckle. Apparently Drunk Potter was funny as well as delusional. He quelled the desire and went on.

"Not that I'm not grateful or anything, because I am. But honestly, Potter. I'm sure it's annoying to have people on their knees before you begging you for the secret of how you get your hair to do that fantastic impression of a dead beaver, or to discover that your insane-with-child wife has let in a reporter who's taken a picture of your mess of a bedroom, but believe me, it's better than the alternative."

Potter was staring at him as intently as he'd been examining the alcohol phoenixes a moment before. He breathed out, and his forehead seemed to unwrinkle a bit. "I suppose you're right. But it's still nice to get away once in a while." Then his forehead wrinkled up again and he stared more searchingly into Draco's face. "Hey, how come you knew about the reporter in my bedroom? That spread was only available to people on the Prophet's Potter Mailing List."

Draco decided that this was an excellent time to take that shot of firewhiskey.

He wiped his mouth, suppressing the shudder as the burning alcohol passed down his throat. "Of course you keep up with the details of your own mailing list, Potter. How very like you."

Now Potter was grinning. "You're changing the subject," he said. "You've been stalking me."

Draco felt his jaw falling open. "I most certainly have not!"

"Have too," Potter said.

"You sound like a child, Potter. And surely you must realize that I have much better things to do with my time than stalk you. The very notion is ridiculous."

"Oh yes." Potter was really enjoying himself now, leaning toward him over the table. "So many better things to do, with no social agenda to speak of, trapped in Malfoy Manor with a wife everyone knows you only keep around for convenience, who everyone knows has been sleeping her way through a list of every elite pureblooded bachelor in England."

Draco leaned back. Hearing everything listed like that, from Potter's smirking mouth no less, was more shocking, more painful than Draco had thought it would be. But then he realized something.

"You certainly seem to know quite a lot about my life for someone who's calling me a stalker," Draco said, not trying very hard to keep the triumph from his voice.

Potter seemed to realize his mistake a once, and began edging out from behind the table. "I don't know what you're talking about, Malfoy," he said.

Malfoy knocked his chair over in his hurry to stand up and corner Potter. Potter stood in front of the table, hands braced against it, blocked from moving by Draco's outstretched arms. "Oh no, you're not getting out of it this easily, Potter. So, what's your explanation?"

Potter looked distinctly embarrassed, and a tinge of pink made his cheeks look less hollow than usual. It was surprising how much better it made him look, actually, and Draco wondered that he'd never noticed it before. "I…I've been keeping track of you too," he said. Mumbled, really.

"Is that so?" Draco knew he was crowing, acting like a stupid, self-important sixteen-year-old again, but he couldn't help it. Potter brought out all the worst things in him, it seemed.

"But not in like, a poofter sort of way or anything," Potter went on, growing redder by the second, and Draco laughed harder. "I mean, I'm not obsessed with you or anything."

"You're making it worse, Potter," Draco warned him, though he was happy that Potter had heroically taken all of the explaining onto himself. Draco certainly wouldn't have wanted to have to say any of the things Potter was saying now.

Potter took a breath. "It's just…nice to know what you're up to without having to wear an Invisibility Cloak," Potter finished, reaching up one hand to muss up his hair in the back.

Draco laughed again. He realized somewhat remotely that he hadn't laughed this much in a long time. "I understand, Potter," he said, being sure to infuse his voice with the proper amount of disdain. Quite a lot, that was. "It's all about the rivalry, yeah?"

Potter smiled then, looking relieved. "Right, yeah. Rivalry. Yeah."

"Good to see you're as articulate as ever, Potter," Draco said.

Potter looked as though he were considering something. He stuck his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. Then, he abruptly took his right hand back out of his pocket and stuck it out between them. "So, rivals?"

At that, Draco gave up all pretense and threw back his head and laughed uproariously. He thought about asking Potter if he was aware of what he was doing, what parallels he was making, but thought better of it. Of course Potter knew.

So he reached out his own hand and shook Potter's.


End file.
